At least 15 people died when torrents of lava poured into villages after dark in the eastern Democratic Republic of Congo, destroying more than 500 homes, officials and survivors said on Sunday.
More than 170 children were still feared missing and Unicef officials said they were organising transit centres to help unaccompanied children in the wake of the disaster.
On Saturday, Mount Nyiragongo turned the sky red and spewed out a river of lava, but stopped short of Goma, a city of two million just south of the volcano.
Mount Nyiragongo is one of the world’s more active volcanoes but there were concerns that its activity had not been properly observed by the Goma Volcano Observatory, since the World Bank cut funding amid allegations of corruption.
The volcano, located 10km (six miles) from Goma, last erupted in 2002, killing 250 people and making 120,000 homeless. The deadliest eruption happened in 1977, when more than 600 people died.
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